Halcyon
by antepathy
Summary: An accident lands Drift and Perceptor at New Crystal City. Wing has been repaired.  Drift...has a choice to make. Slash, sticky, angst, slight canon-tweaking.
1. Chapter 1

A kink meme request. So this gets...a bit AU. Sticky, though not in the first two chapters. (After that, though, avalanche of smut).IDW Wing/Drift/Perceptor

Prologue:

It took a long moment for his vision to clear, for images to run through their feeds, resolve themselves, for his cortex to begin labeling them: ceiling, light, hand, Dai Atlas.

Wing forced a wan smile, his facial plates feeling cold and unfamiliar. "Dai Atlas," he managed, his voice thin and thready, but his. It sounded like his, vibrated in his chassis with a familiar hum, and for that Wing felt a surge of gratitude.

"Wing," Dai Atlas inclined his head. "We almost lost you." His large hand covered one of Wing's as he cycled a vent. "It took all our skill to bring you back."

Wing felt his smile wither. He had been willing to die for his City, die for Drift. He wasn't sure he deserved this, though—if he could or should live. He had let them down. He had left the city, brought Drift back. His sacrifice had been an attempt at expiation as much as the ideals of the Circle's code."I'll try to live up to the honor," he murmured, optics sliding off Dai Atlas's face.

"You will," Dai Atlas said, quietly. His hand squeezed Wing's.

"And...Drift?" The hope burned in his optics, fierce and consuming.

"He is...," Dai Atlas frowned. "He survived the battle. He did not stay with us."

Wing tried to stifle the disappointment. But, truly, he would have expected nothing else. Drift still had a journey to finish. A long one. And it should be enough that you started him on this road, Wing. It should be enough. "Of course," he said, unevenly, hoping his new repairs would cover the emotion in his voice, the hollow in his spark.

"And," Dai Atlas said, with the air of someone wanting to get all the bad news out at once, hitting while the subject was still reeling numb from the last one, "I gave him your Great Sword."

"Oh." And Wing felt the lack, the gaping emptiness, so suddenly that he was appalled he hadn't felt it before. His hand brushed back over his head as if expecting, lying down, in medbay, to feel the familiar heft of the hilt. "He...had earned it," Wing said, quietly.

Dai Atlas gave a strange sound. "We think it's the only reason you had a chance—that he used the Sword after you had activated it and..." He shrugged. "It's never quite happened before."

"He earned it." Wing smiled. A more valiant effort this time. "And he is...gone," he guessed, trying to spare Dai Atlas the discomfort of drawing out these disclosures.

Dai Atlas nodded, his optics hooding, from some motive that Wing was...too tired, too spark-sick to probe for.

"I hope," Wing said, a quiet defiance, as all of his were, "that he is happy where he is."

Dai Atlas nodded. "That is, however, Wing, his choice." He gave one last squeeze of Wing's hand before releasing it. "And," he murmured, "yours."

[***]

Drift let loose an uncharacteristic oath, that told Perceptor more about what they were facing than a two-cycle long briefing. Topspin was a bit more forthcoming, his large hands punching through astrogation vectors. "Seems they've got us. Question's how."

"Question for another time," Perceptor murmured. He hunched over the module he was supposed to deliver to Prowl, adding another level of encryption. If the worst happened, this data must not fall into the wrong hands.

"Squadron X all over again," Topspin said, which was somehow his warning before he veered the ship hard to the right.

Drift stepped out with one foot, clamping his magnets down to keep his balance. He tilted his head, staring at the nav screen Topspin had pulled up. His optics went...strange, his body unusually still-still enough that Perceptor caught the lack of motion. "Drift?"

Drift shook his head. "Fine." Reflexive, meaningless. Perceptor waited him out. "Looks...familiar." Drift spread a hand over the astrogation display. "Can't place from where, though."

Perceptor nodded. Another question for another time.

The small craft rocked, bucking under them, the decking groaning under strain. The small space filled with black, sharp smoke and the hiss of seeping vacuum.

"Hit," Topspin said, aware that his assessment was entirely redundant. "Pick a spot, 'cause we're going in."

Drift tilted his head, pointed to the fourth planet from the sun. "That one."

[***]

"Boundary marker," Tracer said. "Two ships, incoming." Another pause. "Cybertronian."

The Circle gathered in the control room, the air thick with tension, studying the monitors.

"Again," Dai Atlas muttered. "Again they're here."

"Brought their war with them, this time." Blaze frowned.

Wing vibrated, staring intently at the display. His shoulder pinions were rigid, flared, as the chasing ship scored a violent hit against the smaller, frailer craft.

Tracer looked over at him. "It's no matter, Wing. You're safe." He and Dai Atlas exchanged a glance. Yes, they'd keep Wing out of it. It had taken decicycles for the jet to recover from his injuries, and for the psychological toll? He was still...not recovered. He recharged alone-had refused lovers, though many had offered, giving his sweet, sad smile and saying simply, graciously, that he was honored but that he could not accept.

It had taken megacycles for Dai Atlas to convince him to link with a new Great Sword, nearly threatening him with exile from the Circle. And Wing had accepted, under that threat, the new blade, but had wept, bitterly, during the ceremony, sobbing so loudly during the vigil that Tracer had almost cut him down himself.

"I can't be safe if my city is threatened," Wing said and there was that adamantine core in his words, the core that had led him, all those megacycles ago, to defy the Circle's tenets, to visit the surface, to bring back the one they'd known as Drift. He wasn't weak, for all his softness. "It's Drift," he added, almost as an afterthought.

Dai Atlas cycled a sigh. "It's an Autobot ship," he said. "That doesn't mean-"

"It's Drift," Wing repeated. "I know. I can feel it."

"Wing...," Dai Atlas began, then stopped.

"The Sword," Wing murmured. "I know you don't believe me. It's the Sword. It's near. I can feel it."

Dai Atlas bit back his rebuttal-it was possible. Remotely possible, though the rebonding should have eliminated that Still... "Please, Wing. Don't get your hopes up." He knew when he said it it was already too late.

[***]

Drift didn't even have time to curse, spinning on one heel in the rocky soil, his twin blades cutting a circumference of flashing light, slicing into the first mech's side. Perceptor fired over Drift's head, at a second attacker, but not before the second mech burst a shot that slammed into Drift's hip.

The place still seemed uncannily familiar, even the fine powder of the grit somehow calling to him. Sunlight blazed down upon them and the smoldering wreckage of their crashed ship. Even if the pursuit team had lost their tracker, the pillar of smoke gave their position away. And they'd come, in force. Whatever was in that data module? Was apparently worth a lot of lives.

Including, shortly, Drift's.

"Too many," Drift snarled, angry at himself as his body fell heavily to the ground. He jammed one sword into the ground, pushing up to one knee, his shattered leg sparking and gouting fluids. A teal arm appeared over his shoulder, the noise and flash of pulsefire.

"Topspin's out," Perceptor said, coolly.

Drift didn't ask how 'out' Topspin was. If he wasn't dead already, he would be in a handful of kliks, when they got overrun. "Module?"

"Safe."

Drift grunted. "Perceptor," he started. Stopped. He bent low, hauling the Great Sword from its sheath.

"Yes," Perceptor said. Not a prompt, but an assent, as if understanding what Drift couldn't manage to say.

"Thanks. For everything." He leaned back, shoulder bumping against the chassis, a hard nudge that would have to pass, he knew, as their last contact.

[***]

"No!" The small force of the Circle of Light had left New Crystal City the moment the ship had hit atmosphere. They'd made as good time as they could, tracking the downed ship, driven by Wing's insistence. Dust flared from the wakes of the ground modes, Wing's and Blaze's turbines humming through the air.

Wing jolted from the air, with a cry, blasting on his engines, racing ahead of the others.

"Wing!" Blaze called.

"Let him go," Tracer said.

"But-?"

"We'll catch up." Tracer caught Blaze's irritated sound. Yes, they had practiced formations. Yes, Wing had pretty much just...thrown that into chaos. "He needs to do this."

Blaze grunted. He'd always felt Wing had gone undisciplined. "Dai Atlas would-"

"Let him go," Dai Atlas's voice was firm over the comm. "It would devour what little spark he has left to hold back." And it was his choice. They were not free if they could not choose. Even this.

"And whatever might be fragile about him," Tracer added, "it is not his skill. He can handle himself. And he needs to do this." He said it with the weight and solemnity of destiny.

[***]

The four Decepticons were closing in. A final push. Outnumbered, but...of course, Drift thought It was how he would have done it. What's the point of superior firepower if not to decisively defeat one's enemy? Pick them apart? Enjoy it?

Perceptor grunted, taking a hit from the right, rocking back from the impact before leaning forward, squeezing off another shot. One went down. One. Not enough.

Drift had crawled over, grabbing a gun from a fallen mech. Without his legs, his sword was useless: all they had to do was stay out of his limited range and he was no threat. It had taken them one or two shots before they'd figured it out-he'd known they would, it was a limited gambit anyway. But sometimes a shot or two is what makes the difference. And it was a vent to his despairing anger.

He was dying He knew it, could feel life slowly seep from his systems, the gritty, sticky patch of energon-stained sand growing beneath him. Only this time, he wasn't alone. He wished he could risk a glance back at Perceptor. More than that, he wished his death could save the red mech again. Still, dying together? He couldn't ask for much more. If he deserved to ask anything at all.

His audio filled with a roar-fading energon flow, he thought, rising error messages, pouring in so fast they made a rushing sound.

One of the attackers fell, a flash of white, some trick of sunlight, Drift thought, dazzling around him. No time to study that further: another mech, gloating smile spreading over his face, stepped close, leveling a pistol at Drift's head. "Won't Turmoil be pleased?" he said, his voice shattering like sound underwater. Drift was too low on energon, HUD clogged with errors and pain-signal shunts, to even manage a smirk.

Flashes of blue over the dark shoulders, and the smile went rigid, flat, and the optics blinked, puzzled. Energon gushed from the Decepticon's throat, the gun firing, but surprised, misaimed, sizzling the air by Drift's audio, heat and pain and the bitter scorch of laser fire. Drift felt himself succumb to weakness, toppling sideways, as the mech fell to one side, his head tumbling to the other. Death, Drift thought. The world crumbling around him, sight and sound harsh and painful, smearing together. And the mech fell and behind him, spattered blue-purple, a dead mech's face, grinning triumphantly down at Drift, as if welcoming him over the threshold of death.

"Wing," he said, or tried to, before everything gave out and the world went from bright and blazing to empty and dark, his vision skimming down to that one flash of white, like a distant pole star.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N Yeah, I know, I know: for a kink meme request this is an awful lot of WORDS and no smut. Next chapter, I promise!

Drift's systems onlined slowly: he was floating in a cloud of hazy nonfeeling. Blissful nonfeeling, and acutely aware that he should be feeling something agonizing. It was a sort of welcomed void, muzzy and warm and bright, yet still...unreal.

And all the more unreal: the face that hovered over his vid feed. "Drift?" Wing's voice, Wing's face, Wing's helm; the same earnest openness.

Drift made some answer, or tried to, some garbled collection of syllables colliding in his vocalizer.

Wing tried to read his mind. "You're here, yes. And your Autobot friends." Wing's optics flicked, briefly, the smile ratcheting down for a klik, looking at the Autobot insignia in Drift's spaulders.

His Autobot friends. "Perceptor," he managed. The syllables exhausted him.

"He is recovering," Wing said. "As is the other one, designated Topspin? He suffered only temporary damage from the crash, while you and your friend were...more severely injured." A worried tilt to the optics.

Drift struggled up onto one elbow, looking down his still-ravaged frame. Rifle fire scorched the white, energon spattered over him, indiscriminate, and one hip? Shattered ruin. If he looked this bad now...?

Wing perched one hip on the edge of the berth, a Great Sword's hilt canting to one side above his helm. The movement caught Drift's gaze.

Wing ducked his head, self-conscious. "It's a different sword." Like an apology. "Yours is over there." He pointed, as though wanting Drift to see, to acknowledge, that he hadn't taken it. Why? He had every right to: it was his sword.

Drift's spark clutched at the thought of handing the sword back. Could he? It was...part of him, part of who he was, so much a part that the weight felt welcoming when he wore it, that he shifted it without a second thought when sitting or leaning, that his hands sought it for comfort.

As though it was a talisman, a vessel holding his memories of this place and all it meant, his memories of Wing.

"Do you want it?" Wing offered, the words rushing from his vocalizer. "Maybe it would comfort you?"

Drift hesitated, and Wing made the decision for him, pushing off the berth to cross over to fetch the sword, where it had been laid, carefully, on a bracket. Drift tried not to let his gaze follow the familiar, smooth roll of Wing's hips, the slide of light over the armor. The...damaged armor, he saw now. And the pieces snapped into place just as Wing turned, Drift's Great Sword cradled in his palms.

"You were out there."

Wing nodded. Only the nod, nothing more. He approached, holding the sword out. Drift took it, his damaged hands closing around it, one stroking the hilt. Wing smiled down at him, the edges of the smile soft and sad. Drift looked up. "Thanks," he said, lamely, knowing, feeling how inadequate it was. Thanks for saving my life. Again.

Wing leaned in, abruptly, pushing his mouth into a sudden, febrile, kiss. Drift's mouth opened against it, from surprise and a faded familiarity. Wing moved forward, pushing Drift against the berth, throwing one leg over Drift's body, palms on the berth, his EM field flaring and urgent. He whimpered against Drift''s mouth, the sword between them like a bond and a barrier both at once.

Drift tore his mouth away. "Wing..." He couldn't make the other words come.

Wing...knew. Somehow. And that made it worse. "Someone else?" Wing whispered, as if not daring to make the words too loud, too true.

Drift nodded, the gesture small. "Perceptor."

Wing shuttered his optics for a long moment, but it didn't mask the expression of pain rippling across his face. "I...understand," he said. He moved back, withdrawing. Drift stopped him. He had no idea why, other than the look of heartbreak on the mech's face. Wing had saved him—saved all of them for all Drift knew. And this is how he repaid him? His hands rested, helplessly, on the nacelles.

Wing hesitated. "M-may I...lie with you while you rest?" His voice was small, timid, not daring to encroach. How could Drift refuse? Wing had saved him, not just his life. Everything he was, everything he had, he owed to Wing. Drift tugged him down against him, the white jet folding into the space between Drift's body and arm, one thigh sliding over Drift's waist, one shy hand and Wing's silver cheek on his chassis. Drift curved his arm around the jet's shoulders, fingers splaying on one folded wing.

Wing cycled a vent, body softening against Drift. "I missed you so much," he breathed, his EM stabilizing, spreading warm against Drift's frame.

"Yes," Drift croaked. He hated that he'd felt the same way. It felt like a betrayal, but he couldn't stop himself from curling around the jet's frame, resting his cheek on Wing's helm as recharge took him under its own wings.

XxXxXx

Perceptor pushed himself to a seated position-or as much as he could-when the mech walked in. His last memories had been bullet-riddled pain, metal punching at metal, denting, staggering him, and the hot flash of an incendiary demolishing his right arm. Sunlight, actual planetary sunlight, lanced into the room, clean and bright, and almost blinding where it struck the jet's white armor, the too-new silver shine of the replacement arm, bare systems, with no armor, none of his modifications. But it was an arm, a hand. It was something.

The armor spoke volumes: he'd seen the style only once before. Drift. And he'd seen this mech before as well-his memory cache fed him a flash of white and red, then two blinding flashes of blue, like lightning from the jet's black hands, blinding under the blaze of the desert. "You," Perceptor said, his voice hoarse with disuse.

"Me," the mouth quirked into a warm smile, the small jet settling sideways onto a chair, a Great Sword depending from his shoulders. Another reminder: just like Drift. And Perceptor found the size unsettling-this jet was the same size as Drift, small, compact: all the jets he'd known, the three that had been with Megatron for ages now, were large, massy things. "You are Perceptor?" At Perceptor's consternation, he added, hastily, "I've been speaking with Drift."

"Drift," Perceptor managed. A question he didn't even have the strength to formulate.

"Drift is recovering. As soon as he is mobile, he will visit." The words were intended to be soothing, but they just...stirred something dark and green and scaly in Perceptor's systems. The gold optics tilted, worried. "You are discontent?"

"The mission," Perceptor murmured, determined to distract himself from what he was trying hard not to think. His one hand-the other too damaged to flex-rubbed worriedly at a puncture in his chassis.

The jet smiled, bright and warm. Perceptor squirmed, inwardly, under the light of it. "Your third, Topspin, is ambulatory. And the...crate he was guarding is intact." The wedge shaped pinions over the jet's nacelles flared. "Drift told me you were in charge of this mission."

Perceptor wondered what it was between them that made Drift talk to this jet so damn much. It couldn't just be the gentle glow from the optics, the open, earnest face. Drift would not fall for that. "Want to see Topspin." Topspin was as no-nonsense as they came. He'd resettle Perceptor's whirling emotions.

"Yes." A nod, but the jet showed no sign of moving. "Is something else troubling you, Perceptor?"

"Who are you?" Perceptor's optics narrowed.

The jet tilted his head, his helm-familiarly ornate, familiarly white, with the sweeping nasal that Perceptor knew all too well-showing dents and scratches. "My apologies," he said. "We're still not used to strangers. My name is Wing."

Wing. The pieces clattered into place, like an explosion played out in reverse, all the heat and light and pressure cramming back in.

"Drift has talked about me?" Perceptor could hear the eager curiosity in the voice. Hopeful, wanting. And he wanted to shut down, to turn frigid and lethal before that voice, those hopeful optics, the way he lined up a target in his sights...but he couldn't.

"Yes," Perceptor said. An admission. I know who you are. I know what you meant to him. And what he might mean now...? Perceptor slumped to the berth, tanks chill and roiling.

Wing jumped up, palm flat and cool on Perceptor's helm. "Are you unwell? Shall I get the medics?"

Perceptor shook his head. "Fine," he managed.

One corner of the sleek silver mouth quirked up, a shy attempt at a smile, like the first crocus in springtime. "I can see why you get along so well," he said.

And Perceptor realized, in that statement, in that hesitant smile, that Wing knew who he was, what he meant to Drift, and what Drift meant to him. And Wing was uncertain, awkward, wanting but not daring to want.

It was impossible to hate him. He was, in his own mild way, envious of Perceptor. That had...never happened before. And he was a threat: he was Drift's past, the one who had changed everything. And he clearly wanted Drift again. But somehow, threat though he was, Perceptor couldn't summon anything like hostility against him.

It would be easier if he could.

Wing stepped back, his hand tracing down the side of Perceptor's helm, optics distant and curious, knowing he was touching what Drift touched, imagining how it felt to him.

"You," Perceptor said, quietly. "You were the one, in the desert."

"I was not alone. Others were with me." A wry flicker on the edge of the smile. "Behind me. I did...rush ahead of them." He seemed embarrassed by it, now. "I just...the sword." The hands flipped up, palms empty, nervous, vulnerable. Opening himself in front of an absolute stranger. Was it wrong that trust came so easily to Wing? Or were they, after ages of war, the ones who were wrong for withholding it so staunchly?

"The sword," Perceptor echoed. His gaze went to the hilt over Wing's head, ancient and powerful.

Wing resettled onto the chair. "Drift's sword. It was...it was mine."

Oh. Another bond between them, something Perceptor could never hope to share. The moment stretched, awkward, between them.

"Please," Wing said like a supplicant, like the one who could only ask favors, instead of the one with any power at all. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

You rescued us. You're repairing us. Risked everything for us. And you ask... Perceptor shook his head. "No," he murmured.

And for the first time, the light in Wing's optics dimmed, disappointed.

XxXxXxX

"So that's Wing," Perceptor said, quietly, as Drift eased himself down onto the chair, the same way Wing had, canted, so that the Great Sword hung unfettered. Wing had excused himself, after bringing Drift over, hovering solicitously around Drift as he limped on his too-new components, giving one last wanting, worried look back over his shoulder nacelle as he crossed the threshold, leaving them together. The trust—still—amazed Perceptor.

Drift nodded. "That's Wing."

"He's..." Beautiful? Modest? Sweet? Brave? Trusting? Perfect?

"...Wing," Drift finished, a lopsided smile on his face.

Perceptor nodded. He looked down at his hands, the old, battered one and the half-repaired naked one, connected in his lap like a sign. "The mission." Right. Business.

"Topspin's in the best shape. And they can get the ship operational by tomorrow." Drift shrugged."Logical to send the data with Topspin."

Perceptor frowned. That would leave them stranded until Topspin returned. If Topspin returned. If not…? Stranded...with Wing. But. The data had to get there. Perceptor looked down at his battered frame. "Take too long to get me functional," he murmured. A statement and a question.

Drift gave a brusque, embarrassed nod. "My repairs went faster because, well, they had the specs from...last time. Topspin's pretty standard, at least the parts they had to repair. You...," he shrugged. "I think some of your modifications are complex."

Ah. "They are...forthcoming with you."

Drift ducked his head. "Wing. He feels responsible." And he trusted Drift.

Another mental 'Ah.' "Topspin should go, then. The mission is vital."

Drift nodded. The moment stretched again. Perceptor struggled to sit up, wincing as his damaged wrist gave under the weight. Drift lunged forward, hands under the joints, helping lift. Perceptor frowned. "Don't have to do it all yourself. No shame," Drift murmured, "In seeking help from your friends."

"I'm fine."

Drift gave his winsome, lopsided smile. "Of course." Still, he let his hands slide gently over Perceptor's chassis, soothing contact.

"I can see the attraction of this place," Perceptor offered. He gestured around the room. "Even their repair facilities are beautiful. And...the peace." He hadn't heard so much as a raised voice since he onlined. "I imagine it was...hard to leave."

"There was nothing left for me here," Drift said, realizing too late what he'd implied: with Wing dead..."Too peaceful," Drift added. "Haven't earned it."

Perceptor's mouth pinched down at the first part, but nodded. Yes. He understood, all too well. Drift was not his, had never been his. Drift had always been beholden to a ghost. Even now, looking at him, the armor, the mannerisms-everything he thought of as Drift...was rooted in Wing. The same way of sitting, the same slight pause before speaking. Even, Perceptor thought, the same smile, though Wing's was readier, wider, more freely given. As if Drift knew he were a counterfeit.

Drift shifted on the chair, the Great Sword tilting, the blue gem glinting in the sunlight. The sword. Wing's sword. Every time Drift touched it, Perceptor thought, he'd been touching Wing. Thinking of Wing.

"You have earned it," Perceptor said, quietly, the words burning like acid with their truth. He pushed himself further upright, wincing at the strain on his snapped clavicular struts. Drift's optics were worried, tight. Perceptor jerked his chin at the door. "Go to him."

Drift blinked. "What?"

A vent rattled through Perceptor's intakes. "Go. Be with him. Be happy."

"Percept-" Drift began. Stopped. "Is this what you want?" Something liquid glistened under his optics.

No. Nothing like that. But my wants...don't matter. You never wanted me. I was just a replacement. A stand-in to a phantom. The right thing, the least humiliating thing, was to cede ground, give up the salient that had been lost. Lost because it had never truly been his. "Yes," Perceptor said, his optics flat and hard.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Look! Smex! (I mean, uh, warning: sticky)

Topspin settled onto the chair, his optics doing the same quick, cool assessment Perceptor had probably done himself, hundreds of times. "Looking a lot better," Topspin said.

Am I? Perceptor would hate to think what that meant. By contrast, Topspin looked…entirely normal, save for a paired ridged plate on his helm, apparently a local repair for the bulkhead Perceptor had seen crushing Topspin's head into the console. "The ship is ready to go."

"Ready, loaded."

"Secure?"

Topspin tilted his head. "They didn't even try to break into the module." He gave a snort. "Believe me, I checked seven ways to Springer's left diode. Then I felt bad for not trusting them." His large hands pleated themselves in his lap. "This place gets to you."

Perceptor nodded. "You're ready to go?"

"Yeah." Topspin looked guarded. "They said you're not ready to travel."

Perceptor frowned. Drift had said that, too. Meaning he was the weak one, the one who was slowing them down. "I can manage." There was nothing he wanted more than to be away from this place.

Topspin shook his head. He handed over a datapad: Perceptor tapped it on, reading his medical specs. The specialized capacitors and the components in the heat sinks around his cortical relay were damaged. Without proper replacements…critical heat.

"It's a risk, merely." Stupid risk, and he knew it when he said it.

"Not going to chance it," Topspin said. "And I'm ignoring you if you even try to pull rank on this."

Perceptor twitched, the words rattling from his vocalizer queue. "Insubordination," he said.

"A: Wrecker," Topspin said, placidly. Insubordination was Wrecker stock-in-trade. "B: if anything happened to you, Drift would chop me into steel slaw." He shrugged. "Not gonna happen."

"Drift will go with you." Trying not to capitulate so easily. If there was the slightest pressure gradient slip, his whole cortical system could fail. Holding them back, again. He wanted them to leave him as he should have been left in Turmoil's ship.

Topspin shook his head. "Not leaving you alone here." He grinned. "I trust 'em but…not that much." He leaned back, studying Perceptor under the rim of his helm. "Don't think I can get it there? Window's open. No pursuit—no chance for another 'con strafer to get out here yet. Now's our chance."

And Perceptor realized he and Drift had already spoken, already made up their minds. He ground his dentae, bitterly. "Yes," he said. It was so coldly, perfectly logical, after all. It made sense. He just…hated it. "Topspin," he said, eager, grasping at a change of subject. "What do you think of this place?" Topspin had seen more of it than Perceptor, and with, perhaps, clearer optics than Drift.

"It's," Topspin shrugged. "Peaceful. I'm a Wrecker. We don't—really—do peace." He gave a laugh. Perceptor did not laugh back. "Probably just me," he added, a moment later, "Not sure I'm cut out for all this peace stuff."

Perceptor was asking himself the same thing.

[***]

Wing settled the tray of tools on the berth. "Thank you for letting me practice on you," he said. "All of our better technicians are working on your friend's repairs."

"That difficult?" Drift wanted-and didn't want-to talk about Perceptor.

Wing nodded. "They are determined to match the capabilities of Perceptor's specifications."

Drift felt a burst of borrowed pride at that. "Most of those he designed himself," he said.

"They are—apparently—quite impressive. As is he." No envy in the voice, as if that were somehow a foreign language.

"He is," Drift said. In his way. And Wing…?

"Leaving, alas, tasks like this to the less-skilled, like me." His grin was shy, ironic. So many flavors of smile, and Drift was amazed how fast they all came back to him. Wing picked up the microsprayer. "This should help with some of the stiffness in the new joint."

Drift lay back, obediently, dropping his legs to one side. His face was unreadable as he retracted the skirting armor, exposing the replaced hip joint. The ship and Topspin, had departed earlier that day, the sensitive data hurtling toward Prowl. There was nothing for Drift to do but heal.

Wing bent over, working quietly, gaze intent, spreading the pressurized oil through the joint, pausing periodically to wipe the joint down with a small rag. The hot oil felt good-warm and slick and soothing on metal that had been grinding out against itself: Drift felt himself relax onto the berth. He let his optics travel over Wing, as the mech bent, engrossed in his task. The golden eyes were hauntingly familiar, the gentle brushes of the black fingers setting tingles across Drift's net, down his thigh. The pinions of the shoulder nacelles were swept back, sleek against their manifolds, with just the barest edges of the folded wing panels peeking above and behind the shoulders, framing the unfamiliar sword.

"There," Wing said, quietly, with one last swipe of the rag. "Try the joint now?"

Drift straightened the leg, then bent it, then rotated the hip. The oil spread through the gears, the action smooth and painless. "Better," he said. He propped that foot on the berth, knee raised. "Thanks," he added, quietly. Perceptor's words weighed in his cortex. Be with him; be happy? Is that what Perceptor wanted? Is that what Drift wanted?

A thin line of oil slid over one of the hipskirt plates. Without thinking, Wing reached over, swabbing it with the rag, then tracing up the leg, leaning forward, an unconscious gesture of affection, to nuzzle the armor projection of Drift's knee.

Wing stiffened, realizing his overstep, the fond smile crumbling. "I-I'm sorry," he said. He withdrew.

Drift reached, caught his wrist, jerking him forward as he dropped his knee, pulling the red and white chassis onto his, the surprised mouth against his own. Wing made a surprised sound, muffled against Drift's mouth, his hands indecisive between pushing away and clutching at Drift's chassis. Drift felt his systems warm, throbbing against Wing's frame, mapping the contours of the jet's complicated body, shapes so different from Perceptor's-angles and planes where Perceptor was solid and blocky, white satin compared to Perceptor's matte red.

Wing melted against him, his mouth softening, glossa seeking Drift's, optics lidding closed as his thigh slid over Drift's pelvic frame. Wing broke the kiss, gently, in stages, pulling away only to dip down into it again, as if he feared that once he'd ended it, it was over forever.

Drift's hands slid down the back, over the compact, tight folds of the wings, cupping around Wing's pelvic frame.

"Drift," Wing breathed, the name almost sacred in his voice, optics unlidding to golden crescents. Drift murmured against him, washed in memories. This was the past, he told himself. Over and done. But it was also here, vibrantly, vividly here: he could smell the tang of ionization from Wing's idling nacelles, feel the comforting weight of the aerodynamic armor, taste Wing's mouth, hear his gentle wanting whimpers. Wing was his past, but Wing was also the present, and Perceptor had pushed him to it and...he didn't want to think. He wanted to feel, just once more, make Wing alive and real across his sensor span, as if that were the only way he'd believe Wing wasn't a ghost.

He pulled the white jet down, into another kiss, to forestall any questions he knew he couldn't answer, bucking his hips up, worming a hand between their bodies. Wing gave a stifled squeak, hips twitching, fingers digging into the shoulder panels as Drift opened his interface panel, fingers groping blindly over the equipment covers. The valve cover yielded with a soft click, and Drift circled it idly with one finger, feeling his own spike raging behind his own armor. He remembered so well the slick, snug pressure of Wing's valve, but more than that: he remembered the wanton desire the jet showed, shameless, eager. He growled into Wing's mouth, probing the one finger into the valve, tormenting them both by withholding what they both wanted. Wing rocked back trying to push himself against the finger, onto it, giving a soft, longing, impatient whimper.

Drift tilted his chin down, separating their mouths with a series of soft nips while his other hand snaked over the jet's thigh, pulling it wider over his hips, autoreleasing his equipment. Wing gave a juddering sigh, as he settled himself onto the spike, the fine pleats of the valve spreading against the intrusion of Drift's spike. Wing hung for a moment, quivering, his valve's calipers adjusting down against the sudden presence. Drift sucked in a vent of air, cool and sharp, past blurring into the present, as though he'd never left, except for the aching awareness of how long it had been.

He gave an experimental push, and Wing, straddling his thighs, clamped his hands in Drift's, spine arching, valve calipers clutching. He stilled. "Sorry!" Wing gasped, "It's...been a long time."

Part of Drift quailed, knowing without asking how long it had been, guessing that Wing had taken no partners since he'd left. His hands squeezed Wing's hands, fingers interlacing. "I...thought you were dead," he murmured. An excuse, an apology for not being able to hold the same standard, feeling suddenly filthy, impure, next to Wing.

"Don't," Wing whispered, curling back down, separating one hand from Drift's to stroke along Drift's helm. "The past doesn't matter anymore," he said, as much wishing as asserting, bending lower to bury his face in Drift's throat, the panels of his helm sliding against the spaulder.

Drift didn't want to argue-for too many reasons. He pushed up, against Wing, pressing their bodies together, a feral sound boiling in his vocalizer. He thrust into Wing, slow and long, feeling the valve release and open again, feeling Wing shudder against him. He hated the thought that Wing had refused any lover after him, at the same time some dark part of him thrilled to the idea: Wing, untouched, no smudges of other hands, other mouths, on that white armor.

His tempo increased, desire pouring like a torrent into its old channels, bracing one foot on the berth, knee between the parted thighs, leveraging himself up, driving his spike deep. Wing moaned against him, mouth hot and desperate against Drift's throat, hands gripping, stroking, exploring, re-introducing themselves to Drift's body.

The overload hit all too fast, and hard for all of that, intensity on the rawest edge of pain, shocking through his systems like crystalline fire. Wing keened into Drift's body, his frame thrashing against Drift's rigidity, subsiding into soft waves of motion, ebbing desire, the heat of his mouth cooling, softening, as Wing lifted his head to nuzzle Drift's helm, his lips, gentle and vague, brushing over Drift's cheek.

Drift didn't know what to think, didn't want to think, wanting only to hold the jet's body against his, hold onto this long moment of sweet pleasure, holding onto Wing's shivering ecstasy as a shield against the future he didn't want to face.


	4. Chapter 4

Wow FFN, thanks for eating my formatting. AGAIN.

He had no reason to complain. Honestly. And on so many levels Drift knew this. But he couldn't help the feeling of…unease trickling like cold, dirty oil over his systems, even as his sensornet shimmered in the last throes of an overload, the flat planes of Wing's audial panel smooth and warm against his thigh.

Wing tilted his head, golden optics seeking Drift's, his glossa giving a last lazy flick along his mouthplates. Drift managed a smile, stroking one hand over the audial flare. Wing's optics dimmed in pleasure, as he tilted into the touch. How could he complain? He had everything he had ever wanted: peace, security, safety…Wing.

He shouldn't complain, and this was all he'd ever wanted. Except...

Perceptor.

He wanted to blame Perceptor, for pushing him away, giving him permission. But he'd taken it, taken Wing—wanted to be pushed into it, had been willing to be guided. He looked down at the white helm, the almost adoring golden optics, with a cold shame that burned away the last of the pleasure.

He hadn't earned them. He hadn't deserved Wing, earlier, but that had been a promise, a hint of what was possible. And he didn't deserve Perceptor, or the red mech's pain. It struck him like a blow, the thought that Perceptor had let him go. Unworthy. Unwanted.

Something flashed across his face, something that seemed to find an echo in a soft sound from Wing. The jet clambered up Drift's body, in gentle, affectionate touches, twisting himself around behind Drift. He pulled Drift back, so that Drift's shoulder armor hooked over his own nacelles, Drift's backstruts resting on his chassis. The white arms wrapped around his torso, Wing's head sliding against his audio. For a long moment they lay there, Drift cradled against the jet, Wing's knee stabilizers jutting the air around them. Wing sighed.

"Your ship," Wing said, so softly Drift had to strain to hear, "will return in a few days." A long, awkward pause, the words sending dark ripples through Drift's net. "And." Another sigh, long, uneven. "And I just wanted to thank you. For sharing yourself with me." Another pause, as if chopping the sentence into phrases made it easier. "While you were here."

Drift tried to turn, to face Wing, but the jet's white arms clamped down harder over his torso, locking him into position. "Wing…." He fell silent, hating the reminder, reality crashing down upon him like a burning city.

"Drift," Wing echoed, his voice a paltry ghost. The thighs squeezed tighter around him, wanting to hold him as close as he could for as long as he was able.

Drift's head fell back, hands lacing on top of Wing's, the bare span where his Great Sword normally lay pressed against Wing's chassis—the chest plate that had been shattered and burst so that Drift could be free of his past—letting himself be held.

XXXXXX

The red mech, Tracer, Perceptor thought, settled Perceptor down onto a bench in the wide, high room. They were agonizingly careful with him, constantly monitoring his core heat. All for his own good, of course. And what made it worse was his own awareness that he was jumping at shadows. He was the flawed one, the broken one, the imperfection in the perfect city.

"I don't know," Tracer was saying. "Honestly, I think he just thought it might be something more entertaining than having you stare at the walls of your room."

Perceptor schooled his expression, carefully, though the thought was…outrageous. But he'd been invited, in all the strangely stiff, formal courtesy that apparently ran this place, and he would not give Wing the satisfaction of refusal. So he'd allowed himself to be escorted, half limping on his partial repairs, to this practice room. Across the room, Drift and Wing were preparing and Perceptor burned to see them together—evenly matched in height, white and red armor blending together. They really did belong together, he thought. Both beautiful, both perfect. While he was…damaged, more than just his capacitors.

"Paint blades," Tracer said, settling down next to him. "It's a safety precaution for when we practice what would be lethal moves." He gave a smile of some fond remembrance. "And…it's fun."

Fun. Perceptor thought of his own practice time—flat on his belly on the range, shot after shot, practicing for windage, rise, muzzle heat. He was always deadly serious. Fun? No. He nodded at Tracer, glad that the other mech didn't seem to expect much more out of him.

Drift and Wing set themselves at inlaid marks on the floor, each holding two of the short, treated blades. "Blue," Wing called out. "And Drift is yellow."

Tracer gave an assenting noise as the two took some formal guard Perceptor had never seen before. And then, in a flash of movement so fast Perceptor had to struggle to keep up, the two moved, closing the distance between them, blades flashing, then ringing with contact. Wing caught an overhead strike in his crossed blades, before flipping his wrist, spinning around to score a solid hit with one blade against Drift's hip scabbard.

They separated, Drift giving a rueful shrug. "Least you're not going easy on me," he said.

"I knew you wouldn't want me to," Wing answered, a smile flashing brighter than his blade. And that comment held all the familiarity Perceptor had feared: Wing knew Drift, even after all that time, implicitly, intuitively. Things Perceptor had had to guess, to parse by trial and error...Wing just knew.

They reset, flew at each other again, and this time Perceptor could—barely—follow the movements, track the blades and the balance as they spun around each other, dashing in, fleching and blocking, big sweeping moves, delicate spins of the wrist, drops of the body as they helixed around each other, probing, parrying.

Perceptor could see, now, Drift's style, evolved from, related to, Wing's. But Wing's was fluid, like plasma, constantly moving, anticipating and responding with the reflexes of one born to this language: Drift was just a bit slower, his movements heavier, more solid, committing more to each strike than Wing did, exposing more. Not that Drift wasn't good, but Wing was…excellent.

"Is he the best you have?" Perceptor asked, suddenly.

Tracer gave a strange smile. "We don't subscribe to hierarchies like that," he said, and for a moment his optics were hard and unwelcoming. Drift had warned Perceptor of some of the stranger beliefs of these mechs—their names, their dislike of faction and ideology. "But yes. He is one of our best. And in these last years, it has been the only thing that has brought him any pleasure." Tracer's mouth quirked, zipping shut, as though he had said too much. "I'm sorry. Wing is…very dear to me."

So much said—too much—in those words, and Perceptor could see the rest of the tale: Wing, pining, yearning for Drift, wrapping himself in memories and misery, refusing solace. He'd do the same, for Drift. He was already, he thought, doing it. Perceptor wondered what he'd find absorbed solace in, in the years ahead. He wondered if he'd carry it off with Wing's grace.

He bowed his head, half a nod, watching the two of them. He could see Wing's joy, now, incandescent, two things he loved most dearly laid before him, and determined to enjoy every last moment. And he could see Drift, his own style loosening up, his crouch less taut, a grin flickering like lambent flame with each of Wing's warm, ringing laughs.

Drift got in a hit, a stripe of yellow appearing on the jet's nacelle. "Excellent!" Wing cried, beaming as though the yellow smear was a badge of honor. And Drift…smiled. Shyly, not the half-ironic smile he hid his tentative affections behind, but an honest, genuine expression of pride. Perceptor ached, his hand rubbing over his chassis, as though its damaged panels were the problem.

"Are you unwell?"

"I'm fine," Perceptor said, quietly. A lie. He didn't think he'd ever be fine again.

XXXXXX

Drift and Wing sparred for most of the afternoon. At one point, Drift had scored another hit, and Wing had stopped, and made him repeat the strike, slower, head tilting, considering. On the third try, Wing had worked a block for the maneuver, then walked Drift through it, pleased to have learned something, eager to share.

Perceptor had never seen Drift so absorbed, so…happy. Wing was so clearly his superior, but so generous about it, so casual, that it was impossible to feel anything other than a fierce pride when he gave the rare, genuine compliment. Tracer had become engrossed, studying Drift's wilder style with keen interest. And when he'd leaned over and said, "He has a natural skill for this," Perceptor had prickled with pride, as though he had anything to do with it.

Wing stopped, finally, raising his blades in a signal, happiness shining through the weariness in his gestures.

"You win," Drift said, the smile Perceptor knew curling across his face, teasing where Drift didn't dare expose himself. The grin he'd thought was his and his alone.

Wing studied their paint smeared bodies. Wing had won, decisively, Drift's frame hatched with blue lines, while only a handful—a hard-won handful—glowed on Wing's. "I do," Wing grinned back. "And what do I win?" Like the lines of an old, familiar joke. Something else between them.

Drift glanced at Perceptor. His smile fell until he marshaled it back. "Whatever you want," he said.

Wing looked up from where he'd been wiping down one of the blades, over to Perceptor, back at Drift. Perceptor saw him give a slow nod before he approached, his hand curving intimately around Drift's white helm, stroking down the finial, as he pulled him closer to murmur something in his audio. Some small mercy, Perceptor supposed, this nod to him, this pretense of privacy. Drift twitched, almost pulling away. Wing gave a soft laugh, murmured a few more words Perceptor couldn't hope to overhear and drew back, gold optics hungry on Drift. He gave Drift's upper arm one last squeeze, leaving a handprint of yellow against the white, before he stepped back, with a strangely formal bow, and left.


	5. Chapter 5

Perceptor had spent the latter part of the afternoon with the technicians, and his right arm was now armored, the stabilizing circuitry he'd designed reinstalled. The weight felt new, an adjustment to the days without armor. How quickly, Perceptor thought, we become accustomed to loss.

He was sitting in the window alcove of his assigned quarters, watching the sunset streak, red and purple, across the sky. It was peaceful, and suddenly…Perceptor discovered he hated peace. War, or even an argument, a puzzle to solve, something, would have been a welcome distraction. But peace left him time to think, time to feel. It felt like standing on a glacier, bitter cold, the plates of ice cracking beneath him, the very ground lurching as if at any moment it would yawn up and swallow him.

Prepare yourself, the growing darkness seemed to say, shadows blooming in the corners of the room. This is your future: darkness and frozen time.

"Perceptor?" Drift's voice, quiet, unsure, behind him. Perceptor turned.

Drift stood in the doorway, nervous, almost sheepish.

"What are you doing here?" Perceptor blurted.

An embarrassed, stiff smile. "Wanted to be with you."

"Wing." An accusation.

"He…sent me."

"He sent you."

Drift shuttered his optics. "Yes. What he asked for, when he won today. Wanted me to," he shrugged, "come to you."

Oh. To end it, once and for all. To complete his claim. A flourish, Perceptor thought, and nothing more. And part of him flared with satisfaction: Wing was not so perfect after all.

Drift read his expression. "He wanted me to...be with you." He struggled with the words, giving up in a helpless shrug.

The flare of hot satisfaction squelched dead, Perceptor trying to summon hatred against the beautiful white jet, against the hard tide of his own inadequate pettiness. Or at least against Drift, for needing to be ordered to come to him. But all he felt, all he really felt, was an aching longing that Drift was here. Another flaw. Another weakness.

"How do you feel about him, Drift?" The last rampart of resistance, throwing Wing between them.

Drift shook his head. "Didn't come here for that." And that was all the answer he intended to give, and as much as Perceptor could bear.

"What did you come here for?"

"You." Drift dropped to one knee in front of Perceptor, a careful hand on the red knee. Perceptor wished he could be like Drift—just here, now, in the moment, the future not an endless stream of despairing possibilities. Perceptor struggled to find words, wanting to reach out, but knowing he had no right.

Drift pushed off his knee, moving up Perceptor's body, his mouth finding Perceptor's faultlessly, as though it belonged there, wanted to belong there. Perceptor gave into the warm invitation, one hand, his new one, coming up involuntarily to stroke over the white spaulder. It might be the last time, he thought.

And Drift took him, there, in the chair, pulling the black of his pelvic armor to the edge, kneeling before him, hands sliding tenderly over his damaged legs, into the tracks of his lower legs, and up, stroking around the dip of his waist, Drift's mouth a hot circle of want and need on Perceptor's still-battered red, kissing the damage, the injuries, as though they were beautiful. They were symbols of what they had suffered together. Together. Back when they had been...

Perceptor's hands stroked over the helm, up the finials, down the hilt of the Great Sword—Wing's sword, he thought, for an instant, before he shoved the thought from his mind, determined, just once, to experience, to think, to feel like Drift—along its sheath, the sensitive attachments, moaning his desire into the cool metal. Wrong, lost, undeserved desire, but he could not, in his weakness, bring himself to refuse. He'd accept scraps from Wing's hand. He was that pathetic.

Drift's desire crested against him, the overload hard and sweet, and Perceptor's spine arched up, into Drift's chassis, his hands clutching at Drift's shoulders, his head thrown back, mouth silently shaping his own release. Drift squirmed upward, pulling Perceptor's mouth against him, the kiss tender, and, Perceptor thought, the way a farewell might be kissed. He pulled away. "I'll tell them…something," he said, quietly. "You can stay. No one would blame you." Not even me.

Drift looked stricken, as though Perceptor had just shot him. "I would," he said. He looked down the length of their joined bodies, his spike still hot and stirring in Perceptor's valve. His face rippled with distress, looking helpless, lost. It was…terrifying. Perceptor would do anything to snatch the words back. "I…," he bowed his head onto Perceptor's chassis, his voice small, muffled against the beryllium plate. "I don't want to choose." A pitiful, hopeless, impossible plea.

XxXxXxX

Perceptor stood, for the first time, on his own. Mobility, no fear of his systems overheating. Repaired. Fixed.

He didn't feel fixed.

He tried to convince himself it meant something. Other than the time was getting nearer to saying goodbye to Drift. He didn't belong here: even visually, he stood out, Drift fit in.

The door chimed behind him, where he stood on the balcony. He stiffened. Wing.

The white jet stepped out onto the balcony with him, pausing for a moment to survey the city spread like a glittering carpet beneath them. It probably looked different to Wing, Perceptor thought. Not just familiar, but as a jet, his entire perspective on the world must be different. Strange.

"May I speak with you?" Wing asked, his posture tight and formal. Perceptor shrugged assent, not turning, not moving. Petty, he thought, but he didn't want to make it easy. He was losing everything to the jet, the only thing he dared have or want.

Wing rocked gently from side to side. He looked over the city, the sunlight gleaming over his white helm, optics distant. "He loves you," he said. Simply that.

Perceptor clutched for the railing. Of all the weapons he'd expected Wing to deploy, this was…this was not one of them. He cycled a vent, saying nothing. Not agreeing, not denying, but secretly, inwardly, a fierce flame burned, that Wing could see it. As if that made it real.

"A make-do."

Wing shook his head. "Stubborn like he is, too." The gold optics tore themselves away from the glittering view, studying Perceptor. "He's...unhappy," Wing said, and the soft curve of his lip plates fell away for a moment. "And you're unhappy."

It was the next logical progression: "And you? Are you happy?"

The mouth quivered. "I was. I thought I was. And I let it blind me." The helm bowed, humbled. "I didn't see how it was hurting him."

It made no sense: this was his rival, this was his enemy, the one who had supplanted him in Drift's attentions. This was the root cause of his unhappiness, standing before him, admitting to wrong, to selfishness. And all he wanted to do was say something comforting, soothing. He reached a hand-his replaced hand-the glossy digits stroking over Wing's shoulder. "He makes his own decisions, Wing."

Wing looked up. "No one should be forced to decide this sort of thing," he said, softly. "He would have been happier if he'd continued to think I was dead." There, bald and ugly, truth; the wings drooping, miserable before it. Perceptor ached, recognizing what it took out of a mech to speak such horrible truths, knowing he'd locked his own deep inside, buried them in silence. And he couldn't stop himself, that core of softness that had always been in him, no matter how he'd tried to harden his exterior, stiffen his face and his emotions like an impenetrable defense against feeling, against loss, spun to life, and he drew the jet against him, arms folding over the broad shoulders, hoping the physical contact covered for the words he couldn't say. How many times had he thought this himself? How many times had he felt like the burden holding Drift back?

"And," Wing said, his words muffled against Perceptor's shoulder, fingers creeping around the blocky mass of red armor, needy, accepting the embrace, like reaching over a wall, "I worry. That now, that this...has ruined happiness forever for him."

"He will choose the right thing," Perceptor managed, feeling the jet vibrate against him.

"I don't want him to choose the right thing," Wing said, and for a moment there was a hint of temper in the voice, an immovable stubbornness, that which had made him, allowed him to defy the Circle's own rules. "I want him to be happy."

Perceptor nodded. Yes. The decision was beyond 'right' and 'wrong'. He humbly accepted the correction. "Me too," he admitted, aware that he was, for the first time, sharing equally with Wing.

The white audial flare slid over his armor, and Perceptor looked down, golden optics meeting his own, and suddenly, the jet's mouth was on his, warm and wanting, giving and seeking comfort, joining their pain. Perceptor's mouth opened into the kiss, Wing's mouth shy and tentative under his, the hands skimming over his armor, exploring.

Wing's mouth departed, to nip against his throat, lick over the edge of his chestplate, palms tracing parallel circles over Perceptor's frame. "Wing-," Perceptor managed.

"No words," Wing murmured, the mouth coming back, briefly, against his. "Words haven't been much good at solving things so far." And there was a flicker of a smile, a glow in the lidded optics that kindled Perceptor's desire, that such looks, such desires, should ever be aimed at him.

Wing slid down Perceptor's frame, hands and mouth along the abdominal plating, until his nasal bumped over the top of Perceptor's interface hatch. Perceptor gasped, hands reaching for Wing's, along his thighs. Wing squeezed against them, thumbs caressing Perceptor's wrists.

A gentle laugh vibrated across the panel, and then a quick, practiced release, and then the jet's mouth, ardent, against his spike cover.

Wing paused, looking up, his gold eyes seeking Perceptor's from the expanse of his torso, asking permission. And Perceptor knew this was an apology, a humbling recompense for the pain Wing had caused him, trying to palliate some of the helplessness and despair with pleasure and control. Perceptor's body thrummed, rigid with want, as he managed a brusque nod. He saw one corner of a mouth curl, the optics casting down again, as Wing took his spike, a hot pressure over the metal. He couldn't tear his gaze away: the white helm, the golden optics dim and aroused, intent. He shuddered, hands clutching at the jet's shoulder nacelles, clinging for balance as Wing's glossa traced over the ridges and nodes of the spike, his hands kneading at Perceptor's thighs.

Perceptor had no idea what to make of this, what to do, other than to let his systems take their lead, have their way, his sensornet swelling and rushing with charge, with sparks and eddies of sensation, brightly colored light and sound. He stifled a cry, acutely aware they were on the balcony, visible, exposed, as he gave in to the overload, the charge cascading over him, limbs trembling, hands clutching into the red arcs of Wing's shoulders, his weight leaning, quivering, unsteady, against the jet's frame.

Wing pulled back, slowly, releasing the spike with a coy reluctance, dipping back almost playfully to lick along the nodes, chirring with second-hand pleasure at Perceptor's sharp twitches. His mouth curled into a smile, letting the spike finally go. He rested there for a moment, on one knee, looking up at Perceptor, optics wide and keen, cycling a vent, before surging upwards, twining around Perceptor's frame, mouth seeking his, the tart taste of Perceptor's transfluid crossing their mouths, like some contract or bond had been signed.

Wing stepped one leg around Perceptor, and he felt the firm gouge of the jet's knee stabilizer as Wing stepped closer, pushing Perceptor gently off-balance, lowering him to the ground, managing to wedge himself between the silver thighs, one hand sliding over Perceptor's covered valve, the touch light, tantalizing, open in its promise. Perceptor yielded, the cover clicking open. Wing's optics blazed down at him, lambent with desire, the white body rolling sinuously, sinking his spike smoothly into Perceptor's valve, warm and slick and hard. A shiver ran through Wing's frame, air gusting through his ventilation system.

Perceptor's hands floated, cautiously, down Wing's body, over the folded ridge of the wings, up the rise of the Great Sword, pulling the shoulders down against his, inviting, welcoming the contact. It wasn't Wing's fault, any of this. All he'd been guilty of was the same as any of them: wanting. Needing. And he, at least, was trying to make amends.

Wing moved, and his movements were...the opposite of Drift's: where Drift's thrusts were sharp, demanding, hard, Wing's were slow, like sine waves, ebbing and flowing, rising and falling, like a force of nature, a moon-pulled tide, slow, even, and careful where Drift's were hard and heedless.

Perceptor writhed under Wing, rocking in tempo, hips rising to meet, their bodies united, unified, thrusting aside any other differences between them, until Wing arched up, pinions flaring, optics rolling skyward, as the rapture seized him, taking Perceptor with him, charge shimmering over their systems.

Wing collapsed onto Perceptor's chassis, ducking his head against the red shoulder, giving a limp, drained shudder as the charge faded. Sun kissed their joined bodies, like a kind of blessing.

Wing moved, pushing up onto an elbow, smiling down at Perceptor for a moment, before playfully leaning to nuzzle against the scope. Perceptor gasped, his valve giving an involuntary squeeze against Wing's spike. Wing gave a pleasurable squirm against him.

Perceptor lifted one hand, tracing it down the side of Wing's helm. "Ironic," he murmured, fingers following the ornate swirl of the audial flare, "I suspect both of us have been pushing him toward the other." A feeble smile.

Wing laughed, the sound reverberating, like touch, through Perceptor's keyed sensornet. "It doesn't have to be that way," he said. He nipped the scope, wriggling into Perceptor's reaction.

Perceptor cocked his head. Wing leaned into the black palm, rubbing his cheek over Perceptor's hand, giving a satisfied rumble.

"We don't have to be rivals," Wing said. "We've tried that and...," he gave a rueful shrug, "everyone lost."

Perceptor's answer was cut off by another nip, more aggressive, one hand joining it to stroke down the scope.

Wing's optics glowed over the red shaft. "Such an Autobot thing, really, thinking of everything as zero-sum."

"Autobot...thing." Perceptor's vent quickened, his hands twitching, wanting to return the favor, find the secret sensitive areas on the white frame above him. "Is it wise to talk ideology...right now?"

"Why not?" Wing gave a giddy laugh, leaning to lick a slow line up the scope, his optics holding Perceptor's. Drift had hinted that Wing was...a bit of a libertine. "Audience is paying attention."

Perceptor felt the rare pull of a smile on his upper lip plate. "Is this how you convinced Drift?" he asked, clamping his arms around the white hips, rolling over, tucking the jet under his body. It wasn't a very good joke—awful, in fact, laced with Perceptor's own black insecurities, but Wing's laugh sang against him as he pulled the jet into a kiss.


	6. Chapter 6

[***]

Tomorrow. Topspin would arrive tomorrow. Drift had spent the afternoon examining the landing pad-the first New Crystal City had built, and just for the occasion. He knew they were divided: Dai Atlas wanted the city to remain a peaceful backwater: some of the other mechs had wanted to move, to follow Wing's example, taking their message to the distant stars.

They had won, because even Dai Atlas admitted that holding a mech against his will, even in paradise, was keeping him in prison.

Drift had overseen the base, having surveyed and laid out hundreds of LZs in his time, trying to busy himself in work, and not at the galloping of his chronometer, counting down the cycles when he'd have to choose. He was exhausted, body and spark, emotionally drained, as he rounded the corner to the quarters they had given him, tapping the code with weary fingers, numb, but not numb enough. Tonight, one last night with Wing. And then he'd try to pick up the pieces with Perceptor. He never knew he could hurt so much and have no visible mark.

And he knew he was wrong, but he'd turned it over in his mind and...there hadn't seemed, as hard as he had looked, any answer that was right. Hurt Wing or hurt Perceptor. There was no alternative.

The door opened.

Drift froze, his exhaustion sheeting off him like water as he crossed the threshold: on his berth, Wing, sprawled on his back, arms pinned over his head by one black hand, thighs thrust apart by Perceptor's hips as the larger mech drove furiously into him. Froze was...not...quite the right word, since there was nothing cold about it-he locked up filled with a blazing heat, so he could only watch as Perceptor's black pelvic frame thrust against Wing's white armor, one of Wing's ankles hooking around a silver thigh, the redflashed knee stabilizer flagging the movement. Wing's hands curled around the large hand that pinned him, his shoulders twisting off the berth, optics intense, like suns of gold, mouth mobile, half-smiling up at the Perceptor's serious face.

Perceptor gave a growling hiss, just as Wing's hips seemed to jump from the berth, a cry bursting from his mouth. Perceptor's body arched against him, driving the spike home as deeply into the valve as he could, gaze locked with Wing's as if enflamed by Wing's open desire. Drift remained still, watching, as they seemed to ease down together onto the berth, a shudder running concurrently through both frames.

Drift's systems unlocked. "Don't move," he murmured, one hand sliding between Perceptor's shoulder and neck, pulling him into a hungry, demanding kiss. Drift could feel the heat from their systems fluttering against him, the gentle throbs of their EM fields meshing. Drift let his hands run down Perceptor's body, to where it joined Wing's, tracing the lines-where Wing's thighs wrapped over Perceptor's hips, where their bellies touched. They both quivered under his touch.

He broke the kiss. "This little demonstration for me, I presume?"

Perceptor nodded.

A gentle laugh beneath them. "Not...entirely," Wing purred. Drift felt his mouth break into a grin.

"Not done with you."

"You...technically...haven't started with me." Wing gave a playful squirm.

"Is he...always like this?" Perceptor murmured.

"Yes." When he's happy. And Drift realized that...since the first time, Wing hadn't been happy—the way Wing could be. Drift ran one thumb down Perceptor's cheek, taking in the contrast: Perceptor quiet and calm, Wing hot and shameless, before turning his attention to Wing. Perceptor released his grip on the white wrists as Drift bent down, pulling Wing's mouth against his. "Your idea?" He felt Wing's smile against his lips. Of course.

Drift rocked back, jerking his chin at Perceptor. "Has he seen your wings?"

Wing shook his head, stretching his arms around Drift's shoulders. Drift allowed the embrace for a moment, his optics appreciative over the white frame. Wing was undeniably beautiful, and never more than like this, alive with desire. "Wings," he prompted.

Wing smiled. "Yes." He wriggled his way up onto his elbows, gasping as Perceptor's spike slipped from his valve. He paused, optics flicking closed for a klik, shivering with the experience before rolling to stand by the edge of the berth. He flared his wings out, locking them open, looking coyly over one shoulder. "Like this?"

Drift growled assent, before nodding at Perceptor. "Interesting design, right?"

Perceptor studied the design—Drift could see the appraising looks travel over the interlocking panels, the folding strut. He nodded agreement.

"Can touch, if you like," Drift offered. Perceptor hesitated before moving forward, running his hands, an engineer's hands, over the planes and angles. Wing shivered under his touch—the wings were packed with exquisitely calibrated sensors.

Drift joined Perceptor, and for a long moment they stroked the white flared wings together, each pair of hands holding a different knowledge—Perceptor's parsing the science in the shapes, Drift remembering the sensitive bliss of a lover's touch. Wing staggered back, helpless in the throes of stimulation. Drift caught him, wrapping arms around him—one around the narrow white waist, the other under the wing, clutching at the chassis, burying his face in the back of the jet's neck.

Hands slid over Wing's front, over the valve leaking silver fluid down the thighs. Wing whimpered, wanting, as Perceptor reached even farther, his palm sliding tauntingly over the valve, fingertips reaching for Drift's interface hatch. Wing squirmed in frustration.

Drift gave a soft laugh, lifting his face from Wing's neck. "I can normally take care of that myself, Perceptor," he murmured.

"Maybe," Perceptor answered, "you needed a little help. There's no shame in seeking help from your friends," he said tartly, parroting back Drift's own words, but without any real malice.

Drift laughed. "Oh? Well, then. I do need some help." His optics winked, reaching one hand around Wing's thigh. Reading his intent, Perceptor reached forward, his mouth joining with Drift's over Wing's shoulder, the sleek pinion satiny against their cheeks, as he took Wing's weight, hooking his hands under the white arms, tipping Wing's torso forward, as Drift spread the jet's thighs, seating his spike in the slick valve. Wing cried out, clasping his arms around Perceptor's neck, his valve clutching at Drift inside him. Wing's optics were blind with desire, his mouth hot against Perceptor's chassis, throat, licking and nipping his way over the broad black helm.

Wing's responses were pure and unashamed, all the openness Perceptor wished he could let himself show. And for a moment he felt threatened, felt that here was something Wing could offer that he never could fulfill, that if this was a need for Drift, he would lose. But the mouth, seeking his, the hands exploring his broad shoulders, grazing his audio, weren't trying to threaten, to shut him out, but to include him, bring him within the circle, make him part of a closed circuit. He lifted the jet's chin, staring for a long moment into the wide golden optics, before letting his mouth close over Wing's. More than including, Wing wanted to be a conduit, a way to let Perceptor show Drift what he couldn't otherwise.

Wing shuddered against him, Drift's slow thrusts building charge, Drift's hands tugging and sliding the wing plates—a grounder's fascination with flight, a lover's fascination with his partner's pleasure. Perceptor felt a rare smile form around the jet's kiss, as he snaked a hand down the white chassis, groping, blind, until he found the spike cover.

Wing tore his mouth away with a shocked squeak as the spike cover retracted, his spike jutting into Perceptor's ready palm.

Drift shot him a smoldering glance, sharing in the pleasure of contact, of sharing something, and someone. And a brief hopeful moment of relief, that at least right now, right here, Drift didn't have to make a choice. Just once, if never again, he could have them both.

Perceptor's hand worked smoothly against the spike, feeling the lubricant heat from the friction, the delicious tingle of charge from activated friction nodes, while Wing's own hands clung to the red armor, his spinal strutwork arching and contracting, wracked with desire. For Perceptor, still sated from his own overload, it was enough to watch Drift, to feed on the spectacle of the two of them, to feel the rising charge of the spike in his hand, feel the familiar tempo of Drift's hips, transmitted through Wing's responsive frame.

Wing keened, hands clawing at the red armor, spine snapping up, as both of his systems cascaded into a simultaneous overload. Perceptor felt the hot snap of the charge against his palm, then the fast, hard spurt of fluid, some few droplets hitting his belly, his thighs His mouth found Wing's, covering the sound, as if tasting the release, as Drift gave a growling shudder, before bending forward. Drift wrapped his arms around the white torso, resting his cheek against the naked span of Wing's back, his optics lidded but focused on Perceptor's mouth, joined with Wing's.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N. Well, here we go. The last little bit. I really loved writing this story, and the person who posted the bunny on the kinkmeme is just so deliciously wonderful. I hope you enjoyed reading and don't mind that I went for the sappy route at the end here.

Drift awoke, some time much later, after they had all fallen into an exhausted, blissfully drained recharge. Perceptor lay on one side of him, Wing curled against the other, helm nestled against Drift's chassis, thigh thrown over Drift's pelvic frame, the red of his knee stabilizer just brushing the silver of Perceptor's armor.

And over his chassis, their hands—one larger scientist's hand, fitted with microtools and gauges, the other smaller, but with reflexes and motion actuators and basic strength far beyond a normal mech's—were joined, fingers interlaced, like the last wire closing a circuit. The ship was coming in the morning, but for now...Drift determined to stay awake the rest of the night, to record as much of this bliss, this beautiful rare moment, for as long as he could.

Slowly, moving gently, he moved to rest one hand atop theirs.

X[***]X

Drift shifted, feeling a cool blankness against his side. He cracked the shutters of his optics, head turning slowly, stealthily, toward the sound of careful, quiet footsteps. Wing, moving to the bracket on the wall, where Drift had hung his sword. Drift stiffened, and the motion nudged Perceptor, who sat up, half-alarmed, blue optics wide and keen over Drift's torso. Drift kept his ruse-optics nearly lidded, lowlight dim, pretending to recharge, not wanting to intrude. It was Wing's sword. If he wanted it, what could Drift say or do? He was leaving the jet, and the least he could do would be to leave the sword as some feeble weak reminder.

Wing took the sword from its bracket, holding it reverently between his hands, before tilting it up, pressing the gem on the crossguard against his mouth. He stood, silent, focused, and the hum of unintelligible words floated over to him. Wing's hand closed over the hilt, and Drift felt a pulling ache in his spark. He wrestled it down: it was Wing's sword. Not his. Never his. Dai Atlas had had no right to give, and he had been too weak, too needy to do anything but take.

Wing held the blade aloft blue light crackling along the glyphs carved down the central channel, the light flaring across the room.

And then, just as suddenly, just as quietly, the light died, and Wing laid the blade back in its bracket, almost hastily, as if not entirely trusting himself with the temptation. He snatched up his own blade, the second one, the gem a lambent emerald in the soft glow of pre-dawn. Wing wheeled around, without looking at the sword, at Drift, aiming for the door, his face a tight mask.

Perceptor pushed off the berth, moving to intercept the jet just at the threshold of the room. Drift saw the black helm tilt down, the stern blue optics sharp on the jet's face. Perceptor leaned in, murmuring something. Wing stepped back, shaking his head. Perceptor's hand squeezed the white shoulder, his gaze saying something he didn't trust to words. A shiver ran through Wing's frame.

"Just...think about it." Perceptor gave the arm one last squeeze before relinquishing it. Wing stilled, nodded, bowing his head before he dashed out of the room: a mech determined not to have to witness the wreck of all his hopes.

And it struck Drift, what it was all about, Wing, his sword. Wing was saying goodbye.

He let his optics open as Perceptor tried to ease back onto the berth. "What did you ask him?"

Perceptor's mouth quirked as he stretched himself along Drift. "What would make him happy." He gave a sphinx's smile.

X[***]X

/Roger. Have landing coordinates. Inbound./ Topspin wasn't much for words, but the relief seeped through. And in that, Drift and Perceptor didn't have to ask if the mission was a success, if Prowl had gotten his data.

/Inbound acknowledged. Defenses on standby,/ Tracer's voice was cool, professional, as though he had done this thousands of times. The Circle had decided it needed to be adaptable, and Tracer was determined to excel. Soon, they might be doing this more regularly.

/Roger. Confirmed two for pickup?/

Tracer looked back over his shoulder. Last chance to back out, his look said. Wing nodded, firmly, his smile a little nervous, tight, but solid. /Change. Confirm three./

/Three./ A moment, digesting, putting pieces together. Topspin was big, but that did not mean stupid. He'd seen. /Springer's going to fraggin' flip./

Perceptor leaned forward, asking permission with his optics before he tapped the comm. /I'll handle Springer./ He reached his free hand back, squeezing Wing's hand.


End file.
